Architects have been commissioned by London mayor Boris Johnson to draw up plans for a new city on the site of Heathrow.
The move is the latest salvo on Johnson’s bid to relocate the airport to a new site in the Thames estuary.
He is reported by the Times to have paid £30,000 each to three architects to draw a vision of what a future ‘Heathrow city’ would look like.
The mayor wants to replace Heathrow with a new 190,000-home community rather than see the airport expand with a third and possibly fourth runway.
The airport currently provides 76,500 direct jobs and claims to support a fifth of jobs in the surrounding area.